Late '50s and early '60s style abounds in a retired DC-3 located at the Flight Path Learning Center in Los Angeles. The aircraft first flew in 1941 for now-defunct TWA, eventually flying executives for an oil company from 1950 to 1982.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren for USA TODAY

I hear so many people say, “I can never use my miles for business or first class!” It’s like trying to beat Vegas at the gambling game — the odds are in their favor, not yours.

So how do you use your miles to score a win?

Intelligence. Award seats on airplanes are a limited resource, but they’re not a secret resource. You just have to know where to look.

From First Class Flyer’s 21 years of experience finding miles availability for premium travelers, we’ve learned one strategy that anyone can use to parlay their miles into available premium mileage seats.

Boise to Budapest (or any A to B)

Let’s say you live in Boise and want to fly to Budapest. You spot a great low-priced mileage deal with availability from Seattle to London. Now most people stop right there. Seattle? London? But I’m going from Boise to Budapest!

U.S. mileage charts are zone-based, so if you fly American (or partner Alaska), the Boise-to-Seattle flight is a free “tack on” under the zone rules. The “bridge flight” on American or British Airways, a mileage partner with AA, from Seattle to London is the discounted mileage award ticket, and the British Airways flight from London to Budapest is also free because BA is an American partner.

In other words, you fly free from your home to where the great deal starts and fly free from where the great deal ends to your final destination. And the same goes for the return trip. The Boise-to-Budapest trip is just one example of numerous other cities that work the same way, just as long as you stay within the airline partnership. That’s not hard to do given the wide route coverage of and competition among the big three alliances: oneworld (American and partners), SkyTeam (Delta and partners) and Star Alliance (United and partners).

The bridge concept works with mileage programs that use a zone chart, meaning they divide the world into regions (usually the 48 contiguous states and Canada, for example), with every destination within the zone costing the same number of miles. When using a zone mileage program, the only thing travelers have to do is get to and from the bridge.

When searching for premium award travel, most people make the mistake of focusing just on the long-haul segment, which is the most difficult segment, by far. But who cares if you have to fly coach for 45 minutes from Boise to Seattle to be able to fly business class from Seattle to London?

Not many people know about these free tack-on-flights. But if you combine them with good mileage deals and open availability, you can hit the jackpot.

See you up front.

First Class Flyer publisher Matthew Bennett, aka Mr. Upgrade, has specialized in research, insights, and unusual opportunities for premium air travelers since 1996.

With its unusual wingtip fuel tanks and easily visible swooping red stripe, one of Boeing's T33 chase planes rockets out of Boeing Field in Seattle on Feb. 6, 2016, for a test flight.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren for USA TODAY